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To Walk and Not Faint: A Month of Meditations on Isaiah 40 © 1980, 1997 (Second Edition) Eerdmans 189 pages I’ve been disappointed by devotional literature more times than I can recall. The whole lot of it seems too mushy and theologically ungrounded. Then I found Marva Dawn. The concept underlying this book is simple: [...]

I’ve started prayerfully reading through the Imitation. After a couple days, I realize that I could post almost any line from that devotional classic as a Weekend Wisdom quote. This stuff reads like scripture! While discussing the futility of knowledge without character, he offered this: Many words fill not the soul but a good life [...]

A friend of mine just sent me a link to an excellent post on Worship Music. I’m often frustrated by what I have to work with on any given Sunday morning—Brett McCracken manages to express what I’ve often thought. Give it a read: The Tragedy of (Most) Modern Worship Music

The Gathering Storm (Wheel of Time) © 2009 Tor 783 pages So much has happened. The creator of the series died after writing 11 books. A new author was chosen to write finale. The last book sprawled into a trilogy of its own. With so much anticipation, could this book possibly live up to the [...]

In To Walk and Not Faint, Dawn revisits that classic theme, “be sure your sin will find you out” by reflecting on Isaiah 40:27. Her insight into God’s judgment is a healthy antidote to the thunderbolt-hurling image of God many of us have been imprinted with. Ultimately, sin always produces its own destructive consequences from [...]

It’s time to turn the corner. After three chapters expounding humanities failures (Romans 1:18-30), it’s time to look to the solution: the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I have to admit: after reading about Adam’s failures, Sin, Death, and the Law, I’m about ready for some good news. I suppose that’s why Paul spent so much [...]

What Are the Dead Sea Scrolls and Why Do They Matter? © 2007 Eerdmans 131 pages This book is exactly what I expected: a very brief overview of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Using an engaging interview format, Kuhlken quizzes Freedman on the various questions surrounding the Scrolls. Most—but not all—of this book was review for [...]

Klosterman’s the king of quotes that force you to think and respond. Take this one from Chuck Klosterman IV, for example. The observation’s correct—so long as the question doesn’t have an answer. All the world’s stupidest people are either zealots or atheists. If you want to truly deduce how intelligent someone is, just ask this [...]

This is the third section in the chapter, “Humankind under Indictment”. In it, we will see how the Christ-transformed Paul understood the law (nomos)—that which is most precious to any Jew. This chapter should clarify Dunn’s New Perspective on Paul further. Here we go… . . .

The Case Against Tomorrow ©1957 Ballantine Second Printing 1965 152 pages There’s so much to love about golden-age science fiction like: detective stories with robots, martians with green skin, and dystopian views of the future that have proven true in ways the author didn’t quite foresee. This collection of Pohl’s short stories extrapolates the damning [...]